Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city - or should I say 'our city'. I don't own anything. I do not have a car. I don't have a house. I don't have any appliances or clothes.
It may seem strange to you, but it makes perfect sense to us in this city. Everything you considered a product has now become a service. We have access to transportation, accommodation, food and all the things we need in our daily lives. One by one, all of these things became free, so it didn't make sense for us to own a lot.
The first communication was digitized and free for everyone. When clean energy was released, it went fast. Transport has dropped dramatically in price. It made no sense for us to own cars anymore, as we could call a self-driving car or a flying car for longer journeys within minutes. We have become much more organized and coordinated in transport when public transport became easier, faster and more convenient than the car. Now I can hardly believe that we accepted congestion and traffic jams, not to mention air pollution from combustion engines. What did we think?
Sometimes I use my bike when I go to some of my friends. I enjoy the workout and the ride. It ensures that the soul goes along on the journey. Funny that some things never seem to lose their excitement: walking, cycling, cooking, drawing and growing plants. It makes perfect sense and reminds us how our culture originated from a close relationship with nature.
In our city we don't pay rent, because someone else uses our free space when we don't need it. My living room is used for business meetings when I'm not there.
Occasionally I will choose to cook for myself. It's easy - the necessary kitchen appliances are delivered to my door in minutes. Since the transport became free, we stopped putting all those things in the house. Why keep a pasta maker and a crepe cooker stuffed in our cabinets? We can just order them when we need them.
This also made the breakthrough of the circular economy easier. When products are turned into services, no one is interested in things with a short lifespan. Everything is designed for durability, repairability and recyclability. The materials flow faster in our economy and can be converted into new products quite easily. Environmental problems seem far away, because we only use clean energy and clean production methods. The air is clean, the water is clean, and no one would dare to touch the protected natural areas because they represent such value for our well-being. In the cities we have a lot of greenery and plants and trees everywhere. I still don't understand why in the past we filled all free spaces in the city with concrete.
Shopping? I don't really remember what that is. For most of us, it has turned into choosing things to use. Sometimes I like this, and sometimes I just want the algorithm to do it for me. It knows my taste better than it does now.
When AI and robots took over so much of our work, we suddenly had time to eat well, sleep well and spend time with other people. The striker concept doesn't make sense anymore, because the work we do can be done at any time. I don't really know if I would mention the work anymore. It is more like reflection time, creation time and development time.
For a while everything was made entertainment and people did not want to interfere with difficult matters. It was only at the last minute that we discovered how we could use all these new technologies for better purposes than just killing time.
My main concern is all people who don't live in our city. We lost it on the way. Those who decided it was going to be too much, all this technology. Those who felt outdated and useless when robots and AI took over large parts of our work. Those who got angry with the political system and turned against it. They live a different kind of life outside the city. Some have formed small self-sufficient communities. Others just stayed in the empty and abandoned houses in small 19th century villages.
Every now and then I get annoyed by the fact that I don't have real privacy. Nowhere I can go and not registered. I know somewhere where everything I do, think and dream, is recorded. I just hope no one will use it against me.
All in all it is a good life. Much better than the path we took, where it became so clear that we could not continue with the same growth model. We had all these horrible things: lifestyle illnesses, climate change, the refugee crisis, environmental degradation, completely congested cities, water pollution, air pollution, social unrest and unemployment. We lost way too many people before we realized we could do it differently.
Every now and then there are testimonials on the internet of people who have somehow seen the future, after which they returned and told how everything could be there. Sometimes these testimonials are credible, sometimes they aren't, but this material is definitely not what you thought of. That's someone who wrote a report on behalf of ... ... about the future. very, very serious people. What kind of people?
These people are called the World Economic Forum , a Swiss non-governmental organization best known for hosting annual meetings in Davos. Prominent business leaders, political leaders, leading thinkers and journalists are invited to the meetings. The subject of discussion are the most acute global problems, including health and environmental protection.
In the distant 2016 year, they posted an article on their website called Welcome to 2030. I don't own anything, have no privacy, and life has never been better .
In 2016, when the material was published, it all seemed to Greta some sort of opium nonsense - about how to arrange everything so that the birds sing and the grass turns green. Although in reality their plan was to organize the World of the New Order. And now, with the start of "quarantine" for Covid-19, this miracle plan is clearly being implemented.
Look around - everyone is running around hysterically complaining, "Oh, what it is, what it is, the economy has collapsed!" But as follows from this article - there will be nothing. To be precise, there will be artificial intelligence that will be occupied by production. The economy in the form as we know it has ended forever.
Transport is another observation. In Europe, metamorphoses have already begun to be transported - rights have been removed with the slightest violation and the process of obtaining them has been complicated by an order of magnitude. The bottom line is that people are afraid to get into a wheelbarrow, not to disturb anything there, to wander through half the city on foot or to take a bicycle - which is immediately registered. Cyclists are somehow encouraged by the state anyway. That is, there is a quiet movement of cars from the street. People attributed this inconvenience to quarantine, but the problem, as we see, is much deeper and no one will be driving anytime soon.
The distribution of money and products continues. People are afraid because they are afraid this will all end soon. But apparently it doesn't stop, because this is the plan. People continue to be fed while they are part of the plan and ready to implement it.
And the next part of the plan are chips, after which there is no more personal life. Those who refuse to accept them are taken out of town and thrown to the wolves. Those who stay in the city will think about it and worry about it all the time.
Of course, this whole plan is official - with no sharp corners, although these corners are already read between the lines. Those who don't want chips are even brought to the countryside. But life outside the city will be quite tough, because the industry will be canceled, the oil will be canceled, that is, there will be no tractors and combines. The air is full of drones, which are controlled by Artificial Intelligence.
Besides, many elders talked about this. They advised to stock up on various tools, such as an ax and a hammer. This is how their prophecy comes true: The microbial biomass in futuristic cities will be powered by AI, and the rest will feed themselves if they can. This is also reflected in many science fiction films.
It seems that the world government has publicly published its plans - but no one has seen them. Then the world government ordered the plans to bring fascinating films to the biomass - but the mass again saw nothing. And only now, when these plans have already been implemented on the biomass, will people see anything.